Doctor Crippen: The Infamous London Cellar Murder of 1910 (3 page)

The Martinettis received a letter dated 20 March that read,

Dear Clara and Paul,
    Please forgive me not running in during the week, but I have been so upset by very bad news from Belle that I did not feel equal to talking about anything, and now I have just a cable saying she is so dangerously ill with double pleuro-pneumonia that I am considering if I had not better go over at once. I do not want to worry you with my troubles, but I felt I must explain why I had not been to see you. I will try and run in during the week and have a chat. Hope both of you are well. With love and best wishes.
    Yours sincerely
    Peter

After a Guild meeting on 23 March, Clara Martinetti and fellow Guild member Annie Stratton went downstairs to find Dr Crippen at the entrance door. He said that he had received a cable saying Cora was dangerously ill, and he expected another at any minute to say that she had died. If he were to be widowed then he would go to France for a week for a change of air.

There was worse news to follow. On 24 March, Clara Martinetti received a telegram sent from Victoria station that read, ‘Belle died yesterday at six o’clock. Please ’phone to Annie [Stratton]. Shall be away a week. Peter.’ When Clara later went to offer her condolences to Crippen at Albion House, he informed her that Cora had died at Los Angeles with his relations. He subsequently told her that Cora was going to be cremated and her ashes would be sent to London.

Crippen had previously been married to an Irish-born nurse of English parentage called Charlotte Bell, who he had met when they both worked at the same hospital. The wedding took place in San Diego in 1887 and ended with the death of Charlotte on 24 January 1892. They had a son named Otto Hawley Crippen who was raised by Crippen’s parents after Charlotte’s death. When Otto was contacted in Los Angeles, his answers to the Guild’s questions must only have heightened their confusion and suspicion:

The death of my step mother was as great a surprise to me as anyone. She died at San Francisco and the first I heard of it was through my father who wrote to me immediately afterwards. He asked me to forward all letters to him and he would make all the necessary explanation. He said he had, through a mistake given out my name as my step mother’s death place. I would be very glad if you find out any particulars of her death if you would let me know of them, as I know as a fact that she died in San Francisco.

Even more perplexing news came from America. Following an enquiry from the Guild to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, they were told that no one named Crippen had died there in March, although a man named Crippen had died in April.

Louise Smythson, a member of the Guild’s committee, had known the Crippens for around fifteen months. She had last seen Cora Crippen at the Guild meeting on 26 January when she seemed to be in perfect health and high spirits. Louise had also seen Dr Crippen at the ball on 20 February where she asked him about Cora. Crippen vaguely replied that he had heard from his wife somewhere ‘up in the wilds of the mountains of California’.
¹⁵
When pressed for an address, he gave Smythson his son’s address in Los Angeles. When she asked where Cora died, Crippen brusquely told her that it was irrelevant as she was dead, and anyway, the Guild meant nothing to Cora’s American friends.

Guild secretary Melinda May had known Cora Crippen for about two years. Like Louise Smythson, she had seen Cora at the meeting on 26 January when she appeared ‘quite healthy and well, beautiful and bonny’, but noticed that she was surprisingly absent from the 2 February meeting. May went round to 39 Hilldrop Crescent, where she was greeted by Ethel Le Neve, who handed her a pass-book, a paying-in book, a cheque book, a letter to Melinda and a letter to the committee. The letter to Melinda May was not in Cora’s handwriting. It read,

39 Hilldrop Crescent, February 2nd

Dear Miss May,
    Illness of a near relative has called me to America on only a few hours’ notice, so I must ask you to bring my resignation as treasurer before the meeting to-day, so that a new treasurer can be elected at once. You will appreciate my haste when I tell you that I have not been to bed all night packing, and getting ready to go. I shall hope to see you again a few months later, but cannot spare a moment to call on you before I go. I wish you everything nice till I return to London again. Now, good-bye, with love hastily,
    Yours, Belle Elmore, p.p. H.H.C.

Nor was the letter to the committee in Cora Crippen’s hand:

39 Hilldrop Crescent, London, N.

To the Committee of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild.

Dear Friends,
    Please forgive me a hasty letter and any inconvenience I may cause you, but I have just had bad news of the illness of a near relative and at only a few hours’ notice I am obliged to go to America. Under the circumstances I cannot return for several months, and therefore beg you to accept this as a formal letter resigning from this date my hon. treasurership of the M.H.L.G. I am enclosing the cheque book and deposit book for the immediate use of my successor, and to save any delay I beg to suggest that you vote to suspend the usual rules of election and elect to-day a new honorary treasurer. I hope some months later to be with you again, and in meantime wish the Guild every success and ask my good friends and pals to accept my sincere and loving wishes for their own personal welfare.
    Believe me, your [
sic
] faithfully,

Belle Elmore.

Lottie Albert was elected new treasurer that afternoon. When Melinda May saw Dr Crippen on 23 March, he told her that Cora was very ill, and that he was waiting for worse news.

Dr John Burroughs was the honorary physician to the Guild. His acquaintance with the Crippens stretched back to 1902. He described Cora as being ‘a vivacious woman, I should say about thirty years of age, bright and cheerful, a very pleasant woman generally. She was very fond of dress, and dressed very well indeed. At times she wore a quantity of jewellery. As far as I know she was in the very best of health. She was a stoutish woman.’ Cora was in fact thirty-six years old, which made her Dr Crippen’s junior by twelve years. Like the other members of the Guild (eight or nine usually attended the meetings), Burroughs last saw Cora Crippen alive in January. He heard of her death via the Martinettis and sent Dr Crippen a letter of condolence:

Dear Peter,
    Both Maud and myself were inexpressibly shocked and astounded to learn of poor Belle’s death. We hasten to send our very heartfelt condolences on your great loss. As two of her oldest friends, why ever did not you send us a line? Do please give us some details of how and where she died. Maud is very much upset, and so anxious to hear. Only quite casually we heard she had suddenly left for America, and were daily expecting a letter or a card from her. Maud could not understand it, as Belle always wrote her on such important occasions, so could only think Belle wanted to cut all her old friends. And now to learn she is no more. It is all so sudden that one hardly realises the fact. We should so like to send a letter of condolence to her sister, of whom she was so fond, if you would kindly supply her address.
    Yours sincerely,
    J. H. B.

Crippen replied on black-edged mourning paper:

My dear Doctor,
        I feel sure you will forgive me for my apparent neglect, but really I have been nearly out of my mind with poor Belle’s death so far away. She was not with her sister, but out in California on business for me, and, quite like her disposition, would keep up when she should have been in bed, with the consequence that pleuro-pneumonia terminated fatally. Almost to the last she refused to let me know there was any danger, so that the cable that she had gone came as a most awful shock to me. I fear I have sadly neglected my friends, but pray forgive, and believe me to be most truly appreciative of your sympathy. Even now I am not fit to talk to my friends, but as soon as I feel I can control myself I will run in on you and Maud one evening. I am, of course, giving up the house, and every night packing things away. With love to both, and again thanking you for your kindness, I am, as ever, yours,
        Peter.
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Besides the members of the Guild, Crippen had also communicated with Cora’s family in America. Cora’s younger sister Theresa Hunn had first met Dr Crippen around 1892 or 1893. Theresa’s half-sister Louise Mills showed her a black-edged letter she had received from 39 Hilldrop Crescent:

My Dear Louise and Robert,
    I hardly know how to write to you of my dreadful loss. The shock to me has been so dreadful that I am hardly able to control myself. My poor Cora is gone, and, to make the shock to me more dreadful, I did not even see her at the last. A few weeks ago we had news that an old relative of mine in California was dying, and, to secure important property for ourselves, it was necessary for one of us to go and put the matter into a lawyer’s hands at once. As I was very busy, Cora proposed she should go, and as it was necessary for some one to be there at once, she would go straight through from here to California without stopping at all and then return by way of Brooklyn, and she would be able to pay all of you a long visit. Unfortunately, on the way my poor Cora caught a severe cold, and not having while travelling taken proper care of herself, it has settled on her lungs, later to develop into pleuro-pneumonia. She wished not to frighten me, so kept writing not to worry about her and it was only a slight matter, and the next I heard by cable was that she was dangerously ill, and two days later after I cabled to know should I go to her I had the dreadful news that she had passed away. Imagine if you can the dreadful shock to me – never more to see my Cora alive nor hear her voice again. She is being sent back to me, and I shall soon have what is left of her here. Of course, I am giving up the house; in fact, it drives me mad to be in it alone, and I will sell out everything in a few days. I do not know what I shall do, but probably find some business to take me travelling for a few months until I can recover from the shock a little, but as soon as I have a settled address again I will write again to you. As it is so terrible to me to have to write this dreadful news, will you please tell all the others of our loss. Love to all. Write soon again, and give you my address probably next in France.
    From Doctor.

There was nothing in Crippen’s behaviour since Cora’s disappearance and supposed death to cause any undue suspicion. Between February and June Crippen had been attending work as normal and had been ‘working very hard indeed’. He had taken to wearing a black hat and black armband.
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When John Nash and Lil Hawthorne visited Crippen to offer their condolences, they found him in a distressed mood, nervous and sobbing. In what would later prove to be an appalling choice of words, Nash described Crippen as being ‘much cut up’.

On 2 February Crippen had visited Attenborough’s pawnbroker’s shop in Oxford Street and asked the manager, Ernest Stuart, for a loan against a diamond ring and diamond earrings. Stuart considered the items to be worth £100 and agreed to a £80 loan. One week later Crippen returned to Attenborough’s with a diamond brooch and six diamond rings, for which he was given a loan of £115.

Crippen had given notice to his landlord that he was going to leave 39 Hilldrop Crescent. The house was to play a pivotal role in the story. It was owned by a builder called Frederick Lown, who had let it to Dr Crippen for a three-year period in September 1905. After three years the arrangement continued on a yearly basis at the rental price of £52 10
s
per year. On 16 March 1910 Crippen told Lown that he wanted to leave Hilldrop Crescent, as he had been left some property in America, and that his wife had already gone there. Crippen agreed to vacate the property on 24 June, but shortly before that date he asked Lown if he could stay until 29 September. Lown later asked after Cora Crippen and was shocked to hear Crippen tell him that his wife had died in America.

Inspector Dew learned that Dr Crippen had journeyed to Dieppe after telling Cora’s friends that she was dead, staying for several days with Ethel Le Neve under the name of Mr and Mrs Crippen. Dew needed to know more and admitted to himself that, ‘taken as a whole, my inquiries had yielded little. I was no nearer solving the problem I had set myself’.
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It was time to have a talk with Dr Crippen.

No story in the world of crime has ever created such widespread interest as that of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen.

J. P. Eddy,
Scarlet and Ermine

At this early stage of the investigation Dew did not harbour the grave doubts of Cora’s friends about her apparent death, but he did have some suspicions:

Mrs Crippen appears to have been a great favourite with all whom she came into contact with, always cheerful, and apparently in excellent health, and does not seem to have expressed any intention of leaving England, to her most intimate friends.
    … there are most extraordinary contradictions in the story told by Crippen, who is an American citizen, as is Mrs Crippen, otherwise Belle Elmore.
    From the action taken by the various friends of hers there can be but little doubt that Crippen has heard, or will soon hear, of the enquiries that have been made and, without adopting the suggestion made by her friends as to foul play, I do think that the time has now arrived when ‘Doctor’ Crippen should be seen by us, and asked to give an explanation as to when, and how, Mrs Crippen left this country, and the circumstances under which she died, which resulted in him causing the advertisement mentioned to be published.
    This course, I venture to think, may result in him giving such explanation as would clear up the whole matter and avoid elaborate enquiries being made in the United States.

The ‘advertisement mentioned’ was a death notice that Crippen had placed in the
The
Era
on 26 March. It was brief and read ‘Elmore – March 23, in California, U.S.A., Miss Belle Elmore (Mrs H. H. Crippen).’ A fuller obituary appeared in
The
Music Hall and Theatre Review
written by Adelene Harrison, a journalist friend of Cora’s: